Thursday, July 10, 2008

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by the word, "Nucular.""He who cannot control his tongue, cannot hope to control his mind." – Fortune Cookie

This cartoon appeared in newspapers vertically, as opposed to horizontally, as it is shown here, and represents the first time I've ever done that with a panel-shaped cartoon. (I have done it on occasion with the strip format, however.) Readers seeing it in the newspaper had to turn the paper sideways or crane their neck to see it properly. (Why "crane" our necks and never "flamingo" our necks?)

This is a version of an idea that my buddy and occasional writing partner, Phil Witte sent me. His idea was a couple of normal kids being passed in a 3-legged race by a kid with three legs. I liked the idea, but added the twist of his having four legs and having to hold one up, with the nuclear (pronounced properly) reactors in the background. These are typical of the sort of adjustments that are sometimes made to cartoon ideas I get from other people. Other times, I use them verbatim. I love ideas from others, but still write around 85% or 90% of my own jokes.

I also like the subtle addition of his three eyes and the eye on his shirt. I always like to give readers plenty to look at.

I don't usually talk about the "funny papers" with other people because, basically, I hate them--the funnies--and have never found them funny--since childhood. Since I'm already a misfit, it would just make it worse if people knew about my fundamental dislike of most cartoons.

Anyway, you and word jokes can actually make me laugh out loud. For that I thank you.

Would you please tell me if you allow bloggers to post a cartoon by you. I ask because I got sick, a song got stuck in my head for 3 days--"Dancing Queen" by ABBA, whom I also hate. Don't ask me how that song wormed its way in. I got no clue.--and your ice cream driver driven insane by the music cartoon came out and I wanted to post it but I didn't want to commit a blog faux pas.

You can see my blog at Halfway To France:

http://halfwaytofrance.blogspot.com

if you would like to see where I would have put a scanned image of your work, if I could.

Will you let me know.

By the way, my all time favorite was "Let my people go!" with the electrical outlet beseeching the suburban household!

Today's in the LA Times is great--the plastic surgery package w/therapy for the kids! Brilliant!

Anyway, wonderful blog. I've been laughing for 20 minutes, reading old posts. I'm actually quite amazed that you don't have so many comments that you're driven to stop blogging! Go figure...

The Orange County Fair is opening on Friday and I'm actually going to go, in part, precisely to sightsee with respect to the issue of rampant social obesity.

I grew up in OK & TX myself--OKC, Tulsa, Edmond, Chickasha, Dallas, Richardson, Irving, Garland--and have lived in CA since I was 15.5, 40 years now.

Whenever I go to the Fair I superimpose a photo of the fairs from the 50s over the view of the fairs of today re: fair-goers. And I ask myself "When are we going to wake up?", as a country, mind you.

Between 9/11 and the obese cops, firemen, and military personnel Bin Laden doesn't have to bother with his little organization anymore. We are so screwed. The latest news items are about giving STATINS to CHILDREN!!! Instead of simply stopping feeding them junk food, too much food, and eviserating PE programs. In CA today, it's up with Algebra and done with PE. Duh...

I'm not even going near the vegan thing. Live and let live. Just don't overeat. Just eat real food. Just refuse to eat anything in packages.

you know what an easy solution to that would be? instead of doing what the pharmaceutical companies are doing (that is, they don't treat illnesses; they cover up the symptoms), why not just stop commercially producing livestock? don't know... sounds good to me.